"here, here is the world. This mouth. This laughter. These temple bones." G. Kinnell

I’d put something off for awhile, and today I finally had to knuckle down and spend 3 dumb hours on it, that I could have spent doing innumerable other, more pleasant things. Now it is late, and I have not Read more…

Today I read a chapter on Dhamma-Vinaya (The Doctrine and Discipline) in the Theravada tradition. The book is called The State of Mind Called Beautiful by Sayadaw U Pandita. After the intro, the first topics covered are the four protective Read more…

Remember when ten percent of the year came rushing up? And now it seems to be taking forever to get to twenty. Today, the insulators came to assess the job site for next Tuesday’s crawlspace redux. Then the arborist came Read more…

Vipassana means “to see things as they really are.” According to dhamma.org, Vipassana is …a way of self-transformation through self-observation. It focuses on the deep interconnection between mind and body, which can be experienced directly by disciplined attention to the Read more…

Today was the first day that I didn’t have to grade anything since January 8th or so. It has made me really think about whether or not I want to teach. The extra money is very useful, but I can’t Read more…

Tonight’s meditation was on change, how all things change–sensations in the body, emotions, circumstances, constantly. I did another guided meditation because I was worried that I might start to fall asleep on my own. It is cold here tonight, and Read more…

Today I read about mindfulness meditation and then, after some much needed shoulder/neck yoga, I did a guided mindfulness meditation delivered by Thich Nhat Hahn.
Mindfulness uses (often) the breath as the object of meditation, a tool to focus the mind. So I breathed in and breathed out and started to fall asleep. But I kept catching myself before a major wobble. This is the style with which many non-denominational meditators are familiar, and with good reason: it's relatively easy.
You focus on your breath and you think (as Hahn suggested) "this is my in breath" and then "this is my out breath." At Colgate, the zen teachers taught us to think "one" and then "two," and if we could stay focused through both, then we might move on to three and four. I never did because focus is hard! Here's to getting better at it. (more…)

Not entirely true, but today I privileged my own space over things I owe other people. I went on my walk (late, but better than), I read a bit about meditation hows and whys to begin my re-acclimation. I did Read more…

its been going out with a whimper, February I mean. Moving more made me feel better, and I’m gonna do my morning stretches as scheduled. My lunch time walk has become v important to each day. So I’ll chalk Feb Read more…